Fish diet found to do more good than harm - Health & Science - International Herald Tribune

BOSTON — The heart-protective benefits of eating seafood can outweigh the harm from mercury and other contaminants that accumulate in fish, according to two major U.S. studies intended to resolve the confusing dietary advice that consumers have received on eating seafood.

The studies, from the Institute of Medicine and Harvard University, said that eating seafood at least twice a week could reduce the risk of heart disease, and that the risk from contaminants could be minimized by the choice of fish. "The average person can consume more fish than they do," said Susan Krebs-Smith of the National Cancer Institute, a member of the committee that wrote the Institute of Medicine study. The most recent federal statistic found that fish consumption per person in 2003 was about five ounces, or 142 grams, a week.

The Institute of Medicine is an organization that advises the government. Its study said women of childbearing age or nursing mothers can safely eat 12 ounces of seafood a week, but should avoid long- lived species like swordfish because they can have high levels of mercury.

Children 12 and younger should follow guidelines similar to those for childbearing women. The report said adolescents should eat seafood regularly, but those who eat more than two three-ounce servings a week should vary the types of fish to avoid a buildup of contaminants from a single species.

The studies' conclusions supported federal guidelines for fish consumption. "Seafood is likely the single most important food one can consume for good health," said Dariush Mozaffarian of the Harvard School of Public Health, the lead author of a study being published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Based on an analysis of more than two decades of research, Mozaffarian and his co-author, Eric Rimm, also of Harvard, concluded that even a modest amount of seafood, such as three ounces of farmed salmon a week, reduced the risk of death from coronary heart disease by 36 percent. The research was financed by the National Institutes of Health. The NIH study also found that one or two servings a week of fish or fish oil reduces death from any cause by 17 percent.